This 19th century manju netsuke depicts a famous episode in the life of Kintaro, the golden boy, a legendary eleventh-century hero, in which he killed a giant carp. The netsuke is ivory, 2.1" (53mm) in diameter. and 0.78" (20mm) thick. For the inscription 応需 Ôju significating made on demand, on a request/order. Then the signature (I didn’t find out anything about on the Frederic Meinertzhagen Card index nor in the George Lazarnick, Netsuke and Inrô artists and how to read their signatures) 永野 Nagano (or less probably Eïno) Sekiyô 石陽, + sort of initials, a stylized and simplified ideogram of an artist (here resembling to a small bow/rope winding around the branch). Denis Naoki BRUGEROLLES, Galerie YAMATO, Paris (France), Japanese works of Art since 1979